Integral Embrace

with you

In my life before,
I thought there was an adversary.
Before,
there was always someone to blame. 
Before,
I could say this or that.

So . . .

Now what?

True experience?  Total presence?

I don't even feel like looking for answers,
to tell you the truth.

But
if i were to look?
If I were to look,
I would want to find them with you.

I'd want to sit across from you
maybe on top of you
and stare so deeply into your eyes
feel you so deeply inside of me
that with even the very slightest movement
worlds would merge
and stir and shake,
and fullness would rake all of the leaves of despair
away from this place.

a pair
a pairing fairness liking the sun and faeries,
ferns in filtered sunlight,
flamboyant flying of predators,
seeking prey below,
and butterflies
and river rocks
unaware of worry,
or of time.

i want the answers to be found in our union.
i want to know where to go next because
we put our hearts and heads together
and came up with something.
something to start with.
then the next thing
and the next.

then we can celebrate all of it.
a party for two
and then four
and then eight.
a community growing larger,
touching and singing,
music and dancing.
chaos and harmony, overlapping.

parties of friends,
people we love.
every night
we glance across the room at each other
eyes and smiles and perfection
knowing we've finally arrived
at that place where
we've cared so much for each other
that we have a hundred times that love to share.

***********

Can't Touch This     v.1

This love I know
cannot be measured.

A thousand birds
freed all at once
can't touch this.

All of the thunderstorms
that have ever been
can't touch this.

Even your own moving away from me
devastating in its effect
can't touch this.

When the trust feels fractured
well,
sometimes we fracture.

If we're lucky
If we've been through this before
we might just remember to be humble . . .
which might just be the same as
choosing to trust.

Then we put ourselves back
together again
and remember the infinite
exquisite moments
when the love was more than enough.

It was how I always wanted to feel.
It is how I feel.
You are the one that I want.

Rumi

For sixty years
I have been forgetful every moment,
but not for a second has this flowing toward me
stopped or slowed.

I deserve nothing.

Today I recognize that I am the
guest the mystics talk about.
I play this living music for my Host.

Everything today is for the Host.

                    --- from The Illuminated Rumi

Rumi

The clear bead at the center
changes everything.
There are no edges
to my loving now.

You've heard it said that there's a window that opens
from one mind to another,
but if there's no wall, there's no need
for fitting the window, or the latch

                        ---  from The Illuminated Rumi 

Integral Love

Inspired by my love for a friend, I set out to write a poem.  I found myself inspired both by qualities she possesses, as well as by the way that I feel when I am near her:  her passion in presence, her innocence, her loving self-expression, and her acceptance of what IS. 

I think it behooves us to think about the kinds of love in the world, the distinctions between them, and how in fact they can be found intermingling with each other on a moment-to-moment basis.  And while it might all seem complex, there's no good reason why we have to make it complicated.

Lovers of Humanity, Lovers of Each Other     

Don't worry about falling in love,
it happens in the midst of all your plans.

Enter a room,
by the end of the night,
you are in love.

Feel another's struggle,
a common tear and a laugh,
you are in love.

Speak quietly with an old friend,
the words fall away,
you are in love.

Love lives outside of ideas.
Love holds counsel with stars.
And always, love reaches into your being,
and emerges
caressing forever.

   

Mary Oliver Strikes Again...

I was just listening to a podcast of The Writer's Almanac, by Garrison Keillor.  I subscribe to it, and listen to one or five every week.  In his Sept 27th, 06 podcast, he reads from Mary Oliver's new collection, called Thirst. 

I didn't know, until I followed the link to the Powell's page, that it is her most recent work, and that it was written after the passing of her partner of 40 years.  In years past I would often think about their partnership.  I knew almost nothing about it.  But at the beginning of each of her books, you can find a dedication to Mollie.  40 years in a relationship, with very little drama and lots and lots of time together on the Cape. 

My imaginings of their life together even made its way into one of my own poems.  I will definitely be getting this collection for my bookshelf.  Grief is one way to open up further.  Grief as a part of loving, loving the person lost and everything else left in her wake.

Messenger

My work is loving the world

Here the sunflowers
here the hummingbird
equal seekers of sweetness

Here the quickening yeast
there the blue plums
Here the clam
deep in the speckled sand

Are my boots old?
Is my coat torn?
Am I no younger young
and still not half perfect.

Let me keep my mind on
what matters
which is my work
which is mostly standing still
and learning to be astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium
the sheep in the pasture
and the pasture

which is mostly rejoicing
since all the ingredients are here

which is gratitude
to begin in the mind
and a heart

and these body clothes
a mouth
with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth
and the wren
to the sleepy dug up clam.

telling them all
over and over
how it is that we live forever.

 

Journal entry on 4/12

Dreams were different this morning, mixed up with so much fever,
the sheets wet and warm.
So much heat.  It occurred to me to worry, but I chose not to.


The dreams left me feeling vulnerable, soft, sad, a small kind of grief.   

In

love.

    In the mountains, or
living by the beach              in my imagination.    At the Cape

on the coast.       Writing with my lover      By a lake.     With dogs, and maybe

    a cat.      And birds
            and butterflies

        landing everywere.

The Fire, by Mary Oliver

From her book Dream Work:

That winter it seemed the city
was always burning --- night after night
the flames leaped, the ladders pitched forward.
Scorched but alive, the homeless wailed
      as they ran for the cold streets.
That winter my mind had turned around,
shedding, like leaves, its bolts of information ---
drilling down, through history,
toward my motionless heart. 
     Those days I was willing, but frightened.
What I mean is, I wanted to live my life
but I didn't want to do what I had to do
to go on, which was:  to go back.
All winter the fires kept burning,
     the smoke swirled, the flames grew hotter.
I began to curse, to stumble and choke.
Everything, solemnly, drove me toward it ---
the crying out, that's so hard to do.
Then over my head the red timbers floated,
     my feet were slippers of fire, my voice
crashed at the truth, my fists
smashed at the flames to find the door ---
wicked and sad, mortal and bearable,
     it fell open forever as I burned.

Seems like a long time ago....

a saunter
a walk that slayed me.
blue eyes curious, intrigued
lithe hips and legs
a confidence
self-evident truth and hidden passion.

you kept moving close,
then backing up...saying something here, there.
and i with you. 

as we just stood and talked about anything. 

later, away from the crowds
to honor
a care and carefulness only fanning my flaming belly.

circumstance, place and time untended
closing down the restaurant
closing down the pier (safe there, regardless of our carelessness....)
an elegant hotel with no vacancy
a cop caught off guard and charmed

rapt attention
subtle universes
a life lived surely just for this day, today, tonight
this night alone would be enough.

we may say and expect one thing
often a boring and unsatisfying thing
something we pretend is true for us ....and isn't.

and then something happens.  it feels sudden.
a meet up with our deeper desire.

what we do then matters.

the universe smiled
the goddesses danced and made love
the greek gods fought and fucked
the nature beings rained and quaked,
and my God....

my God is a beautiful redhead in an old story I wrote when I was seventeen - charming and totally self-possessed.
my God is a gentle breeze embracing me,
whispering,
"I love you as you be this."